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E-commerce Brick and Mortar?

You are here: Athens-South » Blog » Virtual Tours » Website Design » e-commerce » E-commerce Brick and Mortar?

June 4, 2014 By Bob Henderson Leave a Comment

Is e-commerce Brick and Mortar ready for merchants?

I’m coming to the conclusion, after speaking with a lot of people that have more expertise than me, that e-commerce might not be developed enough, to be cost-effective for a small to medium size brick and mortar business, carrying a large SKU inventory and accepts traditional card payments. But so far, I’ve only taken a close look at: Woo Commerce, Foxy Shop/Cart, Square and Shopify (let’s call them ECP’s for e-commerce platforms).
Even if ECP’s can handle the inventory management, the fee structure for payment processing is also an issue. Even at a flat 2.75%, a medium size operation (let’s say $million/year) is going to pay more in fees from my computations. My clients averaged effective card rate is around 3% with their MSP (they thought it was 1.69%*). But, with ECP’s per item fee and monthly plan fees, it’s a wash on the high side, except for Square which is slightly less (excluding new POS hardware and my development time).
One of the up-sides I learned from Square, is that an online order from them does not count as a card-not-present transaction, and subsequently does not trigger the additional 0.75 (3.5%) rate for the manual entry of the card information (i.e. taking an order of the phone).
As far as inventory goes, I predict FileMaker Pro will move into this void, with its 13th edition data base. Or, maybe it already has, with its developers. It has cloud iPad synchronization and cross-desktop platform OS compatibility. FileMaker also happens to be an Apple subsidiary, so integration with the iPad should be seamless. FM dates back to sometime before 1989, when I bought my first FileMaker 3.0.
This is probably TMI, but I’m going to open this up to a broader conversation. I might be back to Square one. Pun intended.
P.S. Paypal is not an option since my clients business category is not allowed by them.
* Most merchants are paying more than they think. The MSP statements are cryptic in the itemization, and the contracts are misleading in the rate structure. I divide the total processing fees by the total sales processed to get their effective rate for payment card processing.

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Athens of the South Virtual Tours

417 Prestwick Court
Nashville, TN 37205
United States (US)
Phone: (615) 477-0737

Filed Under: e-commerce

About Bob Henderson

Creative developer including: full service virtual tours, 360º and 3D imagery. A Certified Trusted Google Photographer. FAA certified Part 107 SUAS (drone) video and photography pilot. Former Vanderbilt Kennedy Center Leadership Council. Former Belmont University Alumni Board of Directors. Former Metro Historical Commision member. U.S. Naval Aviator and Tennessee Air National Guard. Connect with me on LinkedIn | Facebook

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